Is Breakfast A Scam?

According to new scientific research, breakfast may be unnecessary and overrated.

The notion of "breakfast" takes up too much space in the back of our heads, reminding us of yet another small daily failure. Breakfast is a nag. Breakfast saddles up against the loser wall with "flossing" and "401k" and "thank you notes." Breakfast is routinely picked last for gym class.

And yet all our lives we've been told "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" "Don't skip breakfast!" "Hey, you know, you should really start eating breakfast." "Tired, huh? Well, did you eat breakfast?"

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The cuisine that comprises breakfast largely sucks. Most of us tend to wake up still-full from dinner and do not immediately want to ingest bland eggs and burnt toast and orange juice that tastes like acid after brushing our teeth. "But breakfast is so important!"

Well, what if it isn't?

As reported by The New York Times, the August issue of The American Journal Of Critical Nutrition contains multiple studies that undermine our decades-old understanding of breakfast. Specifically, how breakfast might affect our overall well-being and ability to lose weight.

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At the University Of Alabama, researchers assembled a pool of 300 volunteers who were trying to lose weight. The group was broken up into three groups and instructed to either "eat breakfast," "skip breakast," or "do what you normally do" for a period of 16 weeks. The results? Negligble. A lost pound here, a lost pound there, with seemingly nothing to do with different breakfast habits.

But, wait, there's more:

In another new study — this one of lean volunteers — researchers at the University of Bath determined the resting metabolic rates, cholesterol levels and blood-sugar profiles of 33 participants and randomly assigned them to eat or skip breakfast.

Perhaps, then, we should start thinking of "breakfast" as merely 10 or 15 minutes of downtime to center ourselves before starting the day. What if, instead of housing a < target="_blank">Grand Slamwich, we merely stood at the kitchen counter with a cup of black coffee and read the paper?

A morning routine is essential, particularly one that puts you in a good headspace for the next 12 hours. But there's no need to spend the first half of the day full and bloated just because of a lifelong nagging feeling.